Friday, November 2, 2018

Green Scream Fun!

GreenScreamFun!

As I have
said before, it has been a crazy busy school year.So busy in fact, I have not worked on any book stuff
much at all!I have been wanting to
create an animated read-aloud video for my book Into the Ocean but just haven’t had the energy or time to work on
one much. If you work or have worked in the school system, then you know what I
am talking about I’m sure.

Halloween is one of my absolute favorite holidays
in my classroom though and we have been having fun reading local ghost stories,
drawing out some silly and cute monsters and other Halloween themed characters
and my favorite, creating some silly, creepy and magical green screen videos!I would love to share them with you but do to
protecting my students privacy, I can't. I can show you some screenshots though! We had a blast using masks, frames, music,
and my students favorite……monster slip on bags. LOLSounds like fun, huh?It really is but I didn’t just do this with
one class.I work with every grade,
Kindergarten through fifth and we made sooooo many videos. At times, I was
wishing my magic wand prop really could make me disappear. Hahaha!

Have you
ever worked with a green screen app?Do
you have a favorite?I really like
DoInk, which sadly is only available on itunes.This fun app makes creating fun videos easily.You don’t even really need an official green screen,
but they are better, and you can buy one for under $50 bucks.However, you could do what I did for years
and use a green table cloth.I got the cheap
party ones from the dollar store.A dark
holiday green won’t work, you need to get one as close to a basic green as you
can for best results.

Now that you
have your screen, next comes forming an idea on what you want to do with
it.Storytelling is a popular use in
classrooms.Students can write a short
story and either draw out the characters and turn into puppets and act the scene
out, draw out the scene to be placed in the app and only have the students
narrate the story or combine both! DoInk also has an amination app that may be
combined with the green screen app. You can
check out DoInk on Twitter for more great ideas.

Veterans
day is coming up next week and I already have a video in the works!I have some amazing fifth graders who have
volunteered to sing The Star-Spangled Banner while students who bring in
pictures of their family veteran’s play across the screen. This video will be
played during our Veteran’s Day celebration.

Next will be
Thanksgiving and then Christmas!! So many ideas, so little time!

*My videos are used for school purposes only. I do not own the rights to the backgrounds or music used.

6 comments:

Such wonderful activities to share with your students, along with the information for us. This is all new to me, thinking Green Screen was all just "Hollywood Magic." Going to look into this now and thanks so much for the information and heads-up. I live three laps down on the technology racetrack. 🤠🐻

Perfect for Halloween Rebecca! Loved all the creative things you come up with. I bet the kids just adore you. I so wish I would of had a teacher like you! I'll check out your site. Thanks so much for sharing Green Screen.Have a wonderful weekend!Rosie

Hi Rebecca, I take my hat off to you, working with students from all year levels can be exhausting. I know, I used to do it when I taught ESL/LOTE. Just completed 2 days of writing workshops at a school, although I loved it, I realised I no longer have the energy levels to sustain it. You have such enthusiasm for your students it is wonderful to see, they must be so motivated having you as a teacher.

Hi Sandra, thank you for your kind words. Trust me though, after a couple weeks of this, I'm ready for a few weeks of playdough and building blocks. LOL So glad you were able to do some writing workshops!! I'm sure that was exhausting but I bet you did great!